This Amageddon article has been floating around for a while now, and its a perfect example of the vitriolic bullshit thats being spewed about the tech industry in cities like Seattle and San Francisco. geekwire/2014/commentary-amageddon-seattles-increasingly-obvious-future/ I think its great to have a talk about the future of the city and what Amazons obligations will be in that future. But this article, like most others, seems to take it as a foregone conclusion that Amazon, even if it boosts the local economy, pays all its taxes and more, and does its best to grow responsibly, will make the city a worse place. Why is that? Because its bringing the wrong sort of people to Seattle. This idea, that theres a wrong sort of person to import to your city, should be offensive to any thinking person. But apparently thats only the case if that person isnt a white male, because thats what were talking about here. But lets humor this bigot for a second and address the race and gender issues separately. The premise that Amazon is making Seattle whiter, commonly accepted, is almost certainly simply false. Amazons racial data they released doesnt break down by job family, but I have no reason to believe that their tech sector (most of the people who work at Amazons Seattle headquarters are in tech) is significantly different from Googles, which is 60% white: google/diversity/at-google.html#tab=tech Therefore, Amazon is, in all likelihood, increasing racial diversity in Seattle, which is currently 67% white. The only way this isnt immediately obvious is if you buy into the increasingly prevalent, unspoken assumption that Asians (including Indians) are basically white and dont really count in a racial diversity sense. washingtonpost/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/29/how-the-asians-became-white/ This sort of analysis also ignores other forms of cultural diversity that tech brings in, such as immigrants from other majority white countries. In my current role I work with English, German, Russian, French, and Israeli people, all of whom speak their native language in addition to American English, and have their own unique perspectives and customs. But in typical diversity terms, they are simply white people. The other problem posited, besides that Amazon is making the city too white (it isnt), is that its making the city too male. This one actually pans out from a demographic perspective, at least among singles 25-35, where theres at least 120 or so available men for every 100 available women. You might think that women would be happy about their cup running over in terms of dating options, but of course that isnt the case (at least not among those writing this sort of article), because again these are the wrong kind of men. Heres how Amazons male tech workers are described by a dissatisfied female dater, a direct quote from the article: The type of person who is attracted to these jobs and thus to the Seattle area seems to be a socially awkward, emotionally stunted, sheltered, strangely entitled, and/or a misogynistic individual. This is exactly the kind of offensive stereotyping liberals are supposed to find unacceptable and fight against. The men I work with in tech are among the kindest, most intelligent, and most interesting people I have ever met. If you cant find something interesting to talk about with the incredible men in the tech community in Seattle, then maybe instead of dismissing them as socially awkward you should ask yourself why you have nothing to say that can hold their interest. And maybe you should focus on enacting sane legal policies for large companies in the city, rather than demonizing the people who take jobs there. Just a thought.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 01:14:10 +0000
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